Dry And Hot

 It is dry and hot here.  And according to a map I saw today, it will get worse in July.  I mentioned previously that Maryland has pretty decent weather.  The Appalachian Mountains protect us from some of the worst heat surges of the midwest.  Our slight inward costal curvature and the Chesapeake Bay generally protects us from hurricanes.  Tornadoes were unheard of a decade ago, but my get smaller ones now (better small than large).

Locally, we get enough warmth from the South to escape heavy snowfall.  And we get enough ocean airflow to keep temperatures below 100F for more than a few days each Summer.

But there have been exceptions and sometimes they are serious.  And they come and go in a few years.  So I've experienced some of what many people are experiencing previously and now.  

My family moved to Maryland in 1963 and it was routinely snowy for about 5 years.  In Jan 1966 we had a real blizzard.  Snowed for 3 days, while drifts covering the back doors.  2' of snow actually (rare for here), but it "collected".  It was sort of scary to see snow up the the top of some doors.

Wouldn't you know, but that was the day Mom decided she had to give birth to her 4th child!  The neighborhood roads were impassible.  But a major road behind our yard was plowed.  It is slightly a curse being "the elder son".  I was expected (at 16) to keep up with Dad frantically shoveling a path from the garage to the plowed street behind us.  150'!  

But between he and I (I managed about 1/2 what he did) we cleared a path for him to drive Mom to a hospital.  And he basically told me "stay here and take care of the other kids".  Two days later, we had a new sister and Dad came home briefly to make sure we were OK.

We were.  There was food in the fridge, and I was a good Boy Scout, so I knew what to do to keep things going a few days.

And there was a hurricane that moved up the Chesapeake Bay in 1968 (1969?). It sank our 20' boat and Dad didn't have the desire to buy another 3rd hand boat and renovate it.  I didn't object.  Spending part of my Summer scraping off barnacles, siding, and repainting was not exactly how I wanted to spend my Summer vacation.  But we did have that hurricane and it wasn't a minor one.

When I moved here in 1986, the lawn had terrible soil.  The Summers were very hot for several years.  It was so bad, the soil just cracked apart into pieces the size of saucers.  It was brutal with weeks of no rain and many days in a row at or near 100F.  

I took advantage of the cracks to rake 50/50 topsoil/compost into the cracks those several years.  You have the opportunities you get to help things.  My lawn is healthier than my neighbors' these days.

And we are having a dry spell here.  One half an inch this month.  I know some people are getting less, but that doesn't help my lawn any.  But I see my neighbor's watering their lawns.  Grass in my area (fescue) naturally goes dormant in Summer.  And they don't water deeply enough.

So they encourage the grass roots to grow up to where the surface water is and then it needs more watering...  The way to help their grass survive is just to let it be and/or water it deeply once a month.

That's about it on the weather.  Some things you just wait out, somethings you let the grass go brown for a couple months, and some things you do have to deal with.  Like 2' of snow...

Waiting On Trane

I sure will be glad when the Trane heat pump installer arrives Friday morning.  This week hasn't been too bad.  It got up to 79 inside last Friday or Saturday and today.  Two exhaust fans and 2 open windows made it tolerable.  It seems weird when it is warmer inside than outside in May.  

Well, the physical house structure retains heat and takes a long time to cool.  I also have enough appliances that produce heat on their own, and I do cook dinner every day.  Plus, I had the whole house insulation improved some years ago so if heat/cool doesn't go out open windows or doors, it doesn't go out at all.  Normally a good thing, but not right now.

I've been lucky with the weather this week.  May can get pretty warm here, but it has stayed in the 70s daytime and gets down into the 50s at night.   So at least it isn't Mid-Summer, which is when my heat pumps usually fail.  Today and Thursday are forecast to stay cool, so that gets me to Installation Day.  Yay!

I'm prepared.  All the weeds around the current outdoor unit have been pulled up or cut down.  Everything with 5' of the indoor part has been moved away.  I've cleared off the workbench nearest the indoor part so the installer has some space to place tools.  I'll move the car out of the garage the night before so he has an easy direct route from his truck to the basement.  Everything but drinks and snacks and if he wants them, I have them!  😀

The Indoor Lettuce Garden

OK, so yesterday I posted about the veggies and some flowers to go outside in a month or so.  Today I'm posting about the indoor lettuce garden...

I HAD a great lettuce garden going before The Ladder Incident.  Radishes, Bok Choy, Carrots, and 4 Lettuces.

Great Neighbor Deb watered them twice when I thought about them, but they usually slipped my mind.  Priorities were groceries, clean cat litter boxes, and laundry.

When I was able to get down to the basement again (barely), the indoor garden was in trouble.  I managed to water them a few times, but noticed "dust" on the leaves.  Turned out to be an infestation of nearly invisible tiny aphids.  It was too much to cope with at the time.

Thankfully, some plants survived anyway.  Last week I took the trays outside and sprayed them with Neem Oil (a tree-based organic insecticide most effective on small soft-bodied pests like aphids and mites but safe for humans).  The nights were warm, so I left them out 2 days.  Them I sprayed the HELL out of the plants with the garden hose and left them out another 2 days.  

The surviving plants looked bad!

BUT, they were clean of all aphids!  I harvested those.  Fine salads...

I emptied all the tray soil into a large 2'x3' plastic tub and sprayed Neem in the soil to get at any surviving aphid eggs and to let the soil dry a bit.  I don't actually know if aphids lay eggs in the soil, but I was being thorough.  And apparently it doesn't bother earthworms.  I found some beauties in the soil when I repotted the trays!  I moved the worms outside to rich soil.

Then I refilled and replanted the trays.  Bok Choy, Radishes, Red Romaine/Red Leaf/Green Leaf/Green Head/and Endive Lettuces will come my way in 6 weeks!  The nice thing is they are "cut and come again".  They regrow new leaves several times.

I'll show pictures when they are growing again (but they will look about the same as the top pics).  It was nice to be able to get my hands in soil again!  

I have snow peas soaking overnight for planting outside tomorrow.  There is still time for them to fruit before the hot weather hits.  I will be able to plant some seeds directly outside in a couple weeks.  Spinach, Pole Beans, Corn, Beets, Carrots, etc.  Can't wait...

Gardening can be a cruel hobby.  Last year, I had everything planted indoors and out on time but it stayed cold and wet all Spring, so most died and some couldn't be replanted (too late to mature or ran out of seeds).  I hardly got any heirloom tomatoes, no corn or spinach, and few peppers.  THe pole beans were OK.  

This year, the weather was good but I wasn't.  Still, hope springs eternal.  I'm not beyond the point of expecting some good harvests.  

Algonquin Provincial Park, Canada

So there we were canoeing 12 miles uplake to the primitive camping area.  I was in the back to provide the power.  My friend and he was supposed to steer and I discovered he didn't know how to do that.  In other words, I paddled and he made me work harder.

It took all day.  I was disappointed that my friend had exaggerated his canoeing skills, but maybe he underestmated mine and thought we were more even than we were.  And when you are about to spend a week camping and hiking in wilderness, you don't won't to start an argument, you know?

So we found a designated campsite that looked good.  Seemed like a good spot to fish, the wind drifted in from the lake, and there was a flat open spot for heating our dried food.

We put on some mosquito repellent, made a quick dinner of rather boring freeze-dried spaghetti and went to bed.  It was a good thing my tent had a full front mesh cover.  Because we both woke up to see it completely covered with mosquitos trying to get at us!  Seriously, it was COMPLETELY covered.  That is a very scary thing to see.

But they were definitely night-oriented mosquitoes.  Or they gave up getting at us.  The next morning, I said well let's get out on a hike.  He said, why don't we try to catch some fish for dinner first.  Well,  OK.  So we went out in the canoe.  And caught nothing.  I had even caught a few crickets and a few worms.

Then my friend took a nap.  And I realized that if I wanted to hike around, I was going to do it alone.  Which is not safe...  So I didn't.

By the 3rd day, we were out in the canoe again trying to catch some fish.   I don't like fish, but the freeze dried food was pretty awful, so I could have eaten one.  That's when my friend (who was not skilled in a canoe) tipped us over.

I saw it coming.  He leaned too far over.  I yelled at him and tried to balance by leaning to the opposite side, but he outweighed me by 80 pounds.  Over we went!  Fishing rods, tackle, anchor, ropes, all overboard.

Thankfully it was only 8' deep.  But guess who can't swim or dive?  My friend.  And of course he wouldn't know how to get in a canoe without tipping it.  I tossed over the other anchor (attached to the canoe) to keep us at the spot and spent an hour retrieving our stuff while my friend put the stuff I handed to him into the canoe.

That night I said we were leaving in the morning.  It wasn't at all what I was expecting.  I was fine there, but he was completely inept.

We left in the morning.  12 miles can be a fairly long trip, especially when you are basically doing all the paddling.  As we got to the widest part of the lake, a squall blew over.  Suddenly the waves were 2' high.

My friend panicked and started paddling every whichway and I told him that if he did that we were going to die.  I told him to lay down in the bottom of the canoe and I would paddle quarterwise of the waves to the lee shore.

We got there, waited out the squall, and arrived in the main camp after dark (thanks to lights).

I asked the camp manager for a regular tent spot (which he gladly gave after hearing my sad story) and set up the tent.  My friend just fell asleep on the ground in it.  I went fishing...

Sometimes, you are just to worked up to sleep.  So I dropped a 16" bass I caught right at the dock on him,  the only fish caught on the trip, LOL!

When I learn that I do something poorly, I try to improve at it.  And quite frankly, I usually achieve "competncy".  And if it is something I just can't get good at, I admit it (like playing any musical instrument or learning a foreign language).   "Jack of all trades, master at none" is my life...

My friend never wanted to learn anything he didn't already know.  He refused my attempts to give advice on boats and canoes.  In fact, he seemed not to have a simple understanding of basic physical reality. 

Years later, when I had a Jon Boat (basically a rowboat with a sloped front), he stepped off the pier onto the boat.  With one foot on each.  Have you ever seen what happens when you stand one foot on a pier and another on a boat that moves?  Yes, he actually had his feet spread apart as the boat moved away until he fell into the water! 

I always thought that was a joke like slipping on a banana peel.  But it was real...  I watched him fall into the water.  It was only 4' deep there and the pier was only 2' above the water.  But he couldn't even get himself up onto the pier with my help (and he was 6'4") and had to wade to shore.  I'm amazed he didn't drown on the way.

Odd Weather

I might be a very interesting few days!

We have 4" of snow on the ground, it is above freezing, there is a forecast of a inch of heavy rain, and then tomorrow, the temperature is going to plummet from 45F to 10F with windchills near zeroF.

No one seems quite sure what will result from that.  The snow might melt adding to water on the ground which will there freeze, or maybe the ground will stay warm enough to not-quite freeze. 

I did some mild shopping today ahead of this uncertainity.  Nothing serious, just some fruits and veggies I might miss if the roads turned icy.

But I was also reminded of why I seldom shop on weekend days and especially ahead of storms.  People go nuts.  And they get stupid.  All *I* wanted was the usual fruits and veggies ( have month's worth of meat in the freezer).

I'm looking at the carts ahead of me.  Lady, do you need TWO 12 packs of toilet prepare to get you through the next 2 days?  Hey single guy, 6 frozen pizzas?  Etc. 

All I was trying to do was my regular fresh food shopping.  Lettuce, celery, beets, beans, apples, tomatoes, etc...

And I had to stop to shop at the local pet place.  Chewy was out of several regular items (Whole Earth Farm, so I wanted to replace them locally .  I found them at Petco.  But Petco has oddly expensive aquaium fish, and none on the one I wanted, so I went to Petsmart across the street from them.

I walked into Petsmart and was subjected to an utter cacophony of screaming babies, barking dogs and upset parrots screaming words.  It was also doggie adoption day (and hurray for any adopted doggies) but it was a madhouse!  And they didn't have the fish I wanted either.

It's a serpa tetra with a high top black fin.  I found a few a month ago for $1.39 each and suddenly they are $4.39.  The price doesn't really matter to me, but I don't like big price changes like that.  I'll wait.

And there was something else that annoyed me.  If it was just the pet store asking for donations I might help.  But EVERY SINGLE PLACE I GO is soliciting donations for some cause or another on the card checkout these days.  "Do you want to support X"?  You can't escape it. 

But what concerns me is that they never say exactly how you are supporting them?  They never mention a particular organization. 

Do I want to support Vets or homeless people or pet shelters?  Sure.  But not without knowing who they are.  That's why I donate at home to several specific organizations I know to have small administrative costs and most of my money actually goes to the specific causes.

But I am safe at home with the cats' accustomed foods, my fruits and veggies, etc. 

I found what I needed and got out as fast as possible.  I seldom shop on weekend days for that reason.  But sometimes I forget the day.  Retirement will do that to you.

Weather

On Friday, the weather reports warned of severe thunderstorms arriving Monday.

Saturday, the warning were repeated and added "heavy rains".

Sunday, the storm warnings were updated to "torrential rains, hail, and strong winds".  The weather forecasts warned about  possible flooding, electrical outages, failed traffic lights, and falling trees. 

The forecast this morning was for all that to occur between 3pm and 8pm.

My patio tends to collect water because the lawn has slowly raised above the level of the patio.  So minor basement flooding is always a threat.  I have had to suck up incoming rainwater with the wet/dry shop vacuum.  So, as I have for several years now, I dug a small trench in the lawn to let the patio water flow downslope.  I keep telling myself that I should install a drainage pipe just below-ground, but it stays near the bottom of the To Do list; the trench works well enough...

At 2 pm, I brought trashcans into the garage, set out buckets to collect rainwater (for the Venus Fly Traps, brought flats of flower seedling inside so the strong winds wouldn't damage them, and filled  the trench with hose water to make sure it was flowing away from the patio.

The storm was scheduled to hit at 3:45, then 4:45 and it did rain at 4:45.  Drizzle for 15 minutes.  But the radar map showed other heavy rain coming later.  It drizzled another 15 minutes.

The radar map is clear now.  I got 1/4" of drizzle, no serious rain, no winds, no hail. I wanted that rain!  And there is no rain predicted for the rest of the week.

Which means I will have to water the gardens and flowerbeds deeply tomorrow.  I had put it off anticipating the heavy rain. 

I don't blame the weather forecasters too much.  It's tricky.  It would be one thing if a couple forecasters got it right most of the time, showing that it was a matter of individual skill.  But they are get it wrong together.  Which tells me it just can't be done very accurately by anyone.

But I sure wanted that rain!

Sunday Outside

Today was even better than yesterday!  It reached 70 in midday!  I spread more compost in the wildflower bed.  I went light on it yeterday, not knowing how fr it would go, but I barely used 1/5 of the trailerful, so I was more generous today.

I have about 1/2" overall now and enough left to cover the seeds when I broadcast them tomorrow plus some to spread VERY lightly over them afterwards.  The need light to germinate, so they relly only want a sprinkle on top. 

And THAT leaves half the trailerload of compost for use elsewhere!  I have an surfeit of compost and what gardener does not want more compost? 

I will spread the remainder on the Spring Bulb bed.  As the worms work in into the soil, it will feed the bulbs roots and make them stronger next year. 

And I have good news about the bulbs!  I went to a lot of effort in Fall 2015 to plant tulip and hyacinth bulbs in wire cages to protect them from voles and squirrels.  The tulips came up fine.  But not a single hyacinth emerged.  I was ready to dig up the hyacinth cages and replant last Fall, but decided to with them another year.  Sometimes bulbs take some time to grow roots, and I had planted the hyacinths late.

Guess what I saw today?  Hyacinth shoots emerging from the soil!  I don't know how many will emerge and bloom, but however many come up will be good.  And THIS year, I will cover the spots where they grow with cardboard cut to size so that I will know where not to dig this year. 

And I am thrilled to see daffodils emerging from 2 years ago AND last Fall's plantings.  Just this one bed should have 4x as many as last Spring.  I now have 200 early daffodils, 200 mid-season daffodils, and 200 late-season daffodils!  Plus the usual old plantings of various daffodils around the backyard. 

I prefer tulips and hyacinths for color, but you can't beat daffodils for dependability.  I have some that are 30 years old now and still blooming.

And I've seen the first tulip leaves showing up. More than I thought I would have.  The wire cages seem to work as protection against the voles.  The unusually warm weather is bringing them up sooner than usual.  If it gets cold again, I will cover them.  But it is sure good to see them emerging again.  Tulips are my favorite flowers.  Especially the multicolored ones. 

Daffodils and hyacinths can't match THAT!

Another Nice Day Outside

I can't believe the mild weather we are having here.  It reached 70F here and in generally forecast to stay in the upper 50s to low 70s for about 10 days, never dropping below freezing.  This is weird.  It's MID- FEBRUARY!  There should be snow on the ground and daffodils huddled just below the surface waitibg fir decent weather so they can emerge in March.

Well, I'll take advantage of the nice weather!  Today, I spread compost over the wildflower bed.  Wildflowers are new to me, and as they are generally self-sowing (hence "wildflower").  Apparently all, the seeds want is want is some soft soil to land on so they can get sunlight to germinate and grow. 

I spread compost thinly today.  It went so well, I think I will spread more tomorrow.  I have had this neat gadget for that for 25 years and seldom used it.  It is a wire mesh barrel on a handle.  You fill it with compost and pull it around.  It distributes the compost evenly and thinly.

I could have dumped compost on the new wildflower bed and raked it around, I could have dumped compost on the new wildflower bed and raked it around,


I could have dumped compost on the new wildflower bed and raked it around,  but there are some wildflowers from last years seeds and I didn't want to injure them.  The thin layer of of compost spread by this just rolls over them.  I can add more, I think.

Then I'll spread the seeds with a handheld spreader.

You mix up the small amount of seeds with sand or vermiculite of bulk to help with even distribution. 

I'm cheating a bit.  I also bought separate seed mixes for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.  Those won't last many years but will get things started faster and shade out the grassy weeds. 

More Bulb Planting Fun

The Project That Never Ends continues...  WHAT was I thinking when I ordered 350 tulips/hyacinths/daffodils to plant?  Well, I suppose because I had new space and I decided in September to landscape rather than just plant grass.  And its not the bulbs, its the making of and the digging for all the wire cages to protect them from the Evil Squirrels and Nasty Voles.

Just planted in the ground, the squirrels dig them up from above and the voles eat them from below.  I'm hoping the wire cages keep them safe and blooming for years.  But I never expected it would be so much work!

I've bored you with the process before, so I won't do that again.  But even to do a few cages takes time.  It's the weather...

In one sense, I have been very lucky with the weather.  The ground is usually frozen hard by mid November and it has stayed oddly warm this year.  So I have had more time to plant them.  On the other hand, it has rained some  almost every day for 6 weeks.  Not that we are flooded; the rain is a soft drizzle.  But that's enough to make the soil slippery and muddy.  And you don't want to dig in wet soil because it packs down.  And at the end of a day working in wet soil, I would look like The Swamp Thing!

So I have a large 36'x30' sheet of plastic I cover the area with every day.  OK, the bottom 4' are not covered, but that section was the first I planted so I don't have to step in it.

So every day when it is not raining, I take all the stones off some of the edges of the plastic, peel it back for where I want to plant, and get 3 more bulb cages (holding 9 bulbs each) set in.  3 cages take about 90 minutes and after that I'm tired.  Well, each hole has to be 14"x16" and 12" deep.  And the dug up soil has to go somewhere other than on top of the previous plantings (I have styrofoam plates marking the planted spots and I can't cover THEM).

So putting the dug-up soil gets trickier the more cages I plant.  I have all the tulips planted (20 cages) and I am on the hyacinths at the outer edge on one side.  That side (of the 30' edged circle) is the easier to dig in (sandier soil vs clayier soil), so I favor that area for digging.

The other side of the circle will be for daffodils, more about those when I plant them, but they are FAR easier to plant...

So I wanted to start on the hyacinths yesserday.  The forecast looked good.  The Weather Channel website for my town said no rain until 6 pm.  Hurray!  I got started at 2:30.  It took 15 minutes to get the ools and bulbs outside and peel the plastic sheeting off.  So I started to dig the first hole.

And then it started to rain!  Misty at first but then more steadily...  Dammit!  I waited a few minutes as the rain got heavier.  But I gave up and re-covered the planting site with the plastic and put all the tools away. 

Fortunately, I also needed to go grocery-shopping, so off I went with rain falling on the windshield.  For 2 minutes...

Then it stopped completely.  For the rest of daylight.  ARGHHH!

Well, at least I got the grocery-shopping done...

More Snow

I was caught off-guard Sunday to hear we were getting more snow the next day.  I really thought we were done with that here, and I hadn't paid attention to the forecast.  Then Sunday night, I saw that we were dead center in the storm-track and could expect to get 6-10"!

And sure enough, Monday morning it was snowing.  Not hard but steadily.  Worse, it had started as freezing rain, so we had a nice later of ice down first.  YUCK!

Well, at least it meant I would get a chance to use the snowblower.  You may recall that after the previous 8" snowstorm (which ended in the morning) I awoke to find that someone had snow-blowed my driveway for me.  I thought I knew who had.  I sure appreciated the neighborly gesture, but I was disappointed to not get to use mine for the first time after having it sit around for 3 years.  At least I did start it up and widen the driveway clearing by one pass on each side (and mostly hoping that the helpful neighbor would notice that I had a snowblower).

But while it was still snowing in the early afternoon Monday, I heard the likely good neighbor snowblowing his driveway, then a neighbor's, then another neighbor's, so I watched carefully.  Seriously, I wanted to use mine, but I was going to wait at least until it stopped snowing!

As soon as he came to the foot of my driveway, I ran down to the garage, pulled my snowblower to the garage door and opened it.  When he looked up, I smiled broadly and pointed to MY machine with a big "Ta-Da" gesture.  He laughed and came up to the garage and we talked for a while.  He admired my snowblower (and it is a good one - I did some careful research before choosing it). 

I thanked him very much for doing my driveway previously, of course.  He completely understood I was anxious to use my own for the first time.  We talked for a while.  Which was good, because I don't talk to my neighbors all that often.  It's not that I'm unfriendly, its more that I spend most of my time outside in the fenced backyard.  And I'm not good at standing around out by the street just "hanging out".  I'm more the "you need help, just knock on the door" kind of neighbor. 

It turns out he does things like snowblow neighbors' driveways because he's bored all the time.  As he said "I watch TV, fall asleep, wake up, watch TV, fall asleep".  Which may explain why he has so many "toys".  He has 2 cars, a boat, an ATV, a jet-ski, and probably other mechanical stuff I haven't seen.  In the Winter, he's trapped inside! 

While we were talking, another helpful neighbor came by (with a snow plow blade on an ATV) and decided I needed the snow at the end of the driveway shoved to the sides before I could say anything.  What had been light powdery snow became a 2' high block of ice...  We both waved at him so he came up and we all talked more for a while.

Well, they were both wearing heavy Winter coats and I was out there in my shirtsleeves, so eventually I had to admit I was freezing AND needed to get back to my lunch (if the cats hadn't already eaten it).  They both laughed and went along their helpful way.  It was nice to talk to them both though.

Later, just before dark, the snow stopped so I went out and used my snowblower for the first real time.  Wow, those things are great!  I have to admit that it was actually fun.  It really threw the snow well off onto the lawn, and with powered wheels, going back up the sloped driveway was a breeze.  6 passes and I was done.  But it is SO COLD that even in my garage, the snow packed around the augers in the front hasn't melted yet.

But funny story:  The snow surface all around my driveway is now MUDDY!  You see, my asphalt driveway is 27 years old and I've never been one to re-coat the driveway every few years (if things are functional, I don't bother with them much).  So grass as grown up through it in places.  I didn't realize that the growing grass was creating humps of soil on the top.  Things that happen very gradually escape notice.  So when I went along the driveway with the snowblower, it cheerfully scraped the humps of grassy soil right along with the snow.

For right now, I would be glad not to have enough more snow to need the snowblower again this season!

Planting Tomatoes

For years, I have pushed the tomato-planting season using  things to keep them warm in mid April.  The past several years I've gotten a poor harvest.  So this year, I decided to wait until the nighttime low temps were above 50F.  Tomatoes don't like temps under 50F and can die at 45F.  So I watched the 10 day forecast after the average last frost date of April 21 (around here).  There was one night at the end of April under 50F so I waitedMay 1st, the 10 day forecast said none under 50F, so I planted 4 next to the house (well, its warmer there).

Then the 10 day forecast said there would be 1 night below 50F so I waited until after that to plant the tomatoes in the far garden.  Just a couple days, may as well wait.  When that cool night was passed, I looked at the 10 day forecast again, and AGAIN there was a 40's F night in 2 days.  So I waited again.

Now there are 41/42F nights forecast for Sunday and Monday night!  So now I have to wait til Tuesday to plant the rest of the tomatoes (and peppers and cucumbers and other warm weather crops).  This is really setting the season back a bit.

It has not been this low in the nights that I can recall at this late date.  It's global warming.  Yes, you read that right.  Global warming means that, as the Earth heats up, weather becomes more unsettled and random.  Eath heat sends the weather off in more random extremes.  So don't listen to some ideological or scientifically-illiterate politician tell you that global warming isn't true just becuae YOUR local weather has been cooler.  Global warming does not mean "local warming all the time every day". 

Speaking of good forecasting, yesterday, The Weather Channel website hourly forecast said "local thinderstorms about 9:15 pm tonight.  At 9:15 pm I heard a first distant thunder! 

I'll wait 2 more days to plant the rest of the tomatoes, but I will sure check the forecast to decide if I need to cover them for a little more warmth!!!

This year, I really want to try the "wait til its warm" planting idea. 

I DID get a lot of weeding around the flowerbeds done today. A third.  If that doesn't sound like much, it was a space 25' x 8 feet, among existing flowers.  You have to walk very carefully among them to weed.